Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!

12:00 pm

Sat December 10, 2011

Limericks

Coming up, it's Lightning Fill in the Blank, but first it's the game where you have to listen for the rhyme. If you'd like to play on air, call or leave a message at 1-888-Wait-Wait. That's 1-888-924-8924. You can click the contact us link on our website waitwait.npr.org.

There you can find out about attending our weekly live shows back at the Chase Bank Auditorium in Chicago, Illinois, and you can check out our podcast, "how to do everything." This week: how not to get a lunch date with Matt Damon.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: In case you were worried that might happen. Hi, you're on WAIT WAIT...DON'T TELL ME!

DON GEORGE: Hi everyone, my name is Don George and I'm from Falls Church, Virginia.

SAGAL: Hey, how are things in Falls Church?

GEORGE: Pretty good. The weather has started to get a little bit cold now, so we now seemed to have moved from fall straight into winter.

SAGAL: I see. That's always frustrating when there's no transition. What do you do there?

GEORGE: I work for an internet services company, helping our clients take their environments from their physical data centers up to the cloud and do a lot of data center virtualization.

SAGAL: Wow.

GEORGE: I know.

SAGAL: Well, welcome to the show, Don. Carl Kasell right now is going to read you three news-related limericks with the last word or phrase missing from each. If you could fill in that last word or phrase correctly on just two of the limericks, you will be our winner. Ready to play?

GEORGE: I am.

SAGAL: Here's your first limerick.

CARL KASELL, HOST:

The museum director will whine no more, the skull's on the shelf in room 904. The discovery's big and there's no need to dig. We found a new species of?

GEORGE: Spore.

SAGAL: Spore? It's a little slightly more complicated than that but you're on the right track. Let's hear it again.

KASELL: The museum director will whine no more, the skull's on the shelf in room 904. The discovery's big and there's no need to dig. We found a new species of?

GEORGE: Dinosaur.

SAGAL: Yes, dinosaur, very good.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: Scientists at Britain's National History Museum have discovered a new dinosaur species right in their own basement. It turns out a pile of bones that had been sitting there for more than a century belonged to a previously unknown type of dinosaur, now known as the Spinops Sternbergorum. It was one of many species of basement dinosaurs who often ended up in basements in search of their primary food source: 30 year old men who still live with their parents.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Here's your next limerick.

KASELL: What I'm like is real easy to tell. The term aura describes it quite well. You can tell by your nose that the bloom's off my rose. My traits are discerned by their?

GEORGE: Smell.

SAGAL: Right, indeed.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE)

SAGAL: The way you act determines the way you smell. Everybody in America just went uh-oh.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is from a study in the Journal of Personality. It is called that because it's not very good looking.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Oh, the journal, it has personality. Scientists had subjects wear shirts for three consecutive days and then they had other people make character judgments on the wearer of those shirts, based strictly on the smell. The results were a pretty good match to what they knew about the people beforehand. Nice people, though, do not necessarily make nice smells though, which is why you might find yourself saying, "Whoa, what happened? Did somebody kindness in here?"

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

PETER GROSZ: If I smelled one of those shirts, I'd be like I don't know what this person's like but I know that they wore this shirt for three days.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: Exactly. All right, here is your last limerick.

KASELL: At Starbucks we try to refine what you sip on your break after nine. The Venti Merlot is for here or to go? Our coffee shop soon will serve?

GEORGE: Wine.

SAGAL: Yes, indeed.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

SAGAL: Starbucks has announced that it will start serving beer and wine in some shops next year, in addition to their usual $17 cups of coffee.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: This is great. Thanks to their shame-free to go cups, you'll be able to have beer lattes at your desk all day.